SILK-WORM. 319 



spider, which was fed for four years witli paste, and 

 then with the leaves of the green willow, till it burst 

 with fat, — and others that it was the produce of a 

 worm which built nests of clay and collected wax. 

 The insect was at length spread into Persia ; and 

 eggs were afterwards, at the instance of the Emperor 

 Justinian, concealed in hollow canes by two monks, 

 and conveyed to the isle of Cos. This emperor, in 

 the sixth century, caused them to be introduced into 

 Constantinople, and made an object of public utility. 

 They were thence successively cultivated in Greece, 

 in Arabia, in Spain, in Italy, in France, and in all 

 places where any hope could be indulged of their 

 succeeding. In America the culture the silk-worm 

 was introduced into Virginia in the time of James I., 

 who himself composed a book of instructions on the 

 subject, and caused mulberry-trees and silk-worms' 

 eggs to be sent to the colony. In Georgia, also, 

 lands were granted on condition of planting one hun- 

 dred white mulberry- trees on every ten acres of 

 cleared land.* 



The growth of the silk-worm has also been tried, 

 but with no great success, in this country. Evelyn 

 computed that one mulberry-tree would feed as many 

 silk-worms annually as would produce seven pounds 

 of silk. " According to that estimate," says Barham,t 

 " the two thousand trees already planted in Chelsea 

 Park (which take up one-third of it) will make 

 14,0001bs. weight of silk ; to be commonly worth but 

 twenty shillings a pound, those trees must make 

 £14,000 per annum. During the last century, some 

 French refugees in the south of Ireland made con- 

 siderable plantations of the mulberry, and had begu 



* North American Review, Oct. 1828, p. 449. 

 f Essay on the Silk-worm, p. 95. London, 1719. 



